Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyer Can’t Recall His Role in Controversial Policies
WASHINGTON - Another former Justice Department lawyer went before Congress on Wednesday with few answers for his Democratic interrogators and a spotty memory.
Hans von Spakovsky, who’s seeking a full six-year term on the Federal Election Commission, deflected questions about whether he undermined voting rights laws, saying, “I was not the decision maker in the front office of the Civil Rights Division.”
Time and again during his confirmation hearing, he cited either the attorney-client privilege or a cloudy memory for his purported role in restricting minorities’ voting rights.
Von Spakovsky couldn’t remember blocking an investigation into complaints that a Minnesota Republican official was discriminating against Native American voters before the 2004 election.
Under oath, he also said he didn’t recall seeing data from the state of Georgia that would have undercut a push by senior officials within the Civil Rights Division to approve the state’s tough new law requiring photo IDs of all voters. The data showed that 300,000 Georgia voters lacked driver’s licenses. A federal judge later threw out the law as unconstitutional.
Von Spakovsky was among four nominees to the bipartisan FEC, which regulates federal campaign finance laws, to appear before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. He and two of the others have had presidential recess appointments since early last year.
Nearly the entire two-hour hearing focused on von Spakovsky and on allegations from former career Justice Department lawyers that he was the administration’s “point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division’s mandate to protect voting rights” of minorities during his more than four-year tenure.
Citing a scathing letter from six former senior officials of the Voting Rights Section, Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told him bluntly: “It is really a problem for this body to vote for someone with this letter on the record.”
Illinois Democratic Sen. and presidential candidate Barack Obama said this week that he thought that von Spakovsky should be rejected “unless he can provide legitimate explanations for his conduct.” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., expressed similar misgivings.
Whether Democrats can derail von Spakovsky’s appointment is unclear.
Feinstein cautioned that “a very serious situation could develop if the Senate fails to confirm at least some” of the four nominees by fall because none of the current commissioners has won Senate approval for a full six-year term.
Another problem for foes of von Spakovsky is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing a home-state candidate, recess appointee Steven Walther of Reno, Nev., and Republicans are likely to put a retaliatory hold on Walther if von Spakovsky is rejected.
Feinstein and Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin peppered von Spakovsky with questions Wednesday about his Justice Department service.
Asked about the Georgia ID law, von Spakovsky declined to disclose the legal advice he gave his superiors, saying it was privileged, but he maintained that the department took the correct position because the courts didn’t find that the law violated the federal Voting Rights Act. In overturning the law, the federal courts cited the 14th and 24th Amendments to the Constitution, he said.
Feinstein questioned von Spakovsky about allegations that he impeded an investigation of allegations that Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer had wrongly interpreted a new state ID law to bar 200,000 Native Americans from using tribal ID cards to vote.
“I don’t remember that complaint at all,” von Spakovsky said.
Durbin, after listening to von Spakovsky’s memory lapses, remarked that it was “an affliction to which many people in the Department of Justice suffer.” He referred to recent testimony by other department officials who are facing allegations of partisanship.
Durbin asked von Spakovsky about a controversial article he wrote for a Texas law journal in 2005 under the pseudonym “Publius,” expressing strong support for voter ID laws.
Weeks after its publication, von Spakovsky reviewed the newly enacted Georgia law requiring every voter to produce a photo ID. He testified Wednesday that he’d received clearance from a department ethics officer to write the article. He also cited a 1994 legal opinion by the department that said employees had a First Amendment right to author articles.
Von Spakovsky revealed his authorship of the article on the FEC Web site in 2006, but later deleted mention of it.
When Durbin asked why, he replied: “I took it off because the controversy was, frankly, interfering with my work at the FEC.”
Feinstein said the committee would accept comments on von Spakovsky’s confirmation until June 20, and she directed von Spakovsky to deliver a point-by-point rebuttal to the six-page letter signed by former Voting Rights Section chief Joseph Rich and five of his senior aides.
The other nominees are Republican David Mason, who’s already served a full FEC term and whom Bush nominated for a second term in 2005, and Democrat Robert Lenhard, a former general counsel of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Mason also has a recess appointment.
© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources.
How in the world did hapless Harry Reid get to be Senate Majority leader? You would think he has the most powerless job in Washington. It’s enough to make me miss Lyndon Johnson.
Damn the torpedos and stop von Spakovsky!
someone should check out the Dept of Justice for lead paint…seems to be a massive outbreak of Alzhiemers there….
If you want a good take on this “forgetfulness” in DOJ go to:
http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=22406
for Tom Tomorrow’s latest edition of “This Modern World”.
Cock sucking piece of filth doing the rich man’s bidding hope he gets cancer
Unfortunately, if a Democrat gets elected president they will have to deal with an ideologically driven and corrupt federal judiciary that will undermine them at every opportunity.
Read “Federalist Society Infection Spreads To US Attorneys” at: http://assimilatedpress.blogspot.com/2007/03/federalist-society-infection-spreads-to.html
What’s next? They gonna nominate Hannibal Lecter for Sec. of Health and Welfare? Every single nominee for every single anything is a bigger F.U. than the last. It’s a joke that’s gone way beyond funny at this point. “Oh yea, you got a problem with that guy? Look at this one - former Grand Wizard of the KKK to head Immigration? Whaddya you gonna do about it?” Rubber stamp him, of course. Please don’t yell at us again…
can anyone recollect that president Raygun was apt to be unable to recollect much when asked a question. That is when he was able to actually hear the question in question. My image of the dimwit will always be his cupping his hand to his ear and claiming that he couldn’t hear the inquiry as he stood on the whitehouse lawn about to board a helicopter. I always wondered where he was going all the time in that helicopter, I guess it was getting away from questioners. Anyway I digress, my point is that we can thank the great tefloned one for establishing this precedent, of being unable to recall what one was thinking when one was making a decision, or coming to a conclusion about what should be done whilst leading the free world.
The President has put all of his gestapo and his SS style political appointees in every posotion of authority to spy and to alter and to remove and spy on important public records. His SEC records magically disappeard as well as his fathers SEC records of his oil company-Zapata. His fanatical supporters in Texas went through the Texas National guard record to create doubt in the public that he was a draft dodger. The knew were to look to remove to remove any record that would cast out him and his family in a bad light. The national archives that keeps the records of the families fate with the Nazi will in the end be destroyed. Many of the JFK reports will be destroyed! They have had 40 years to clean up the pubic record on their lives that is in the national securities files. The Bush clan has put hundreds of important people in position of authority in the military and in government. The reasons we are in Iraq is because they have fast tract the officers that they wanted to promote, who were loyal to them instead of the country. Our Generals are loyal to those who have promoted them. In their loyalty, they are given good high paying jobs in the private sector. Bush violates the law and the spirit of the law. He looks for ways to break the law instead of enforcing the law. The illegal immifration law is being circumvented by Bush because he has used illegals in the past. His family has an invested interest in Delmonte Inc. who was raided in Portland, Oregan for illegals. His family has been on its corporate board along with their Saudi masters who own the company. I find it strange that the BUSH and the Saudis families both believe in slave labor. The Bush Clan believed in Christian America and the American Liberty Leauge that were a non-businessmen union to force the right to work law on to this nation. All of his people are fascist fanatics just like Prescott Bush’s love of Hitler who used the state to murder the union. Bush is the second coming of Richard Nixion. The worst has yet to come. He wants to go to war with Iraq and Syria. He is just waiting for the move to go to war. He invaded Iraq to control the oil to use has a edge against China in case they go to war. We would control all the oil and China’s ability to make war. Unless you have yes people on the payrole you can not make war. He wants all of his people on the payrole to give himself coverage just like Hitler did to justfy taking over the country.
It looks like all of them have been drinking the same Kool-Aid for memory. Harry Reid should suck it up and tell his buddy, “sorry, can’t do it now”. Then get this turd off the FEC, We have to tell our Senators that we want honesty (what an Idea!) in the appointments, not friends and relatives and business partners.
Can someone just simplify all this for me, and make a list of all the people in Washington DC who shouldn’t be in jail.
Frank1569 & John F. Butterfield: I appreciate your humor and the justifiably scathing satire behind it. It’s merited.
I think immediate action should be taken to check out the water supply to the Dept of Justice offices. Some substance is clouding every-one’s memories and impairing their truthful recall gene, producing selective amnesia. Or maybe it is in the duct work. See if Homeland Security can maybe seal up the bad air flow with duck tape and plastic to prevent further brain damage to these poor men and women of the Justice Dept.
How can they work if their memories are so bad??
Ooooohhh. I think I understand…
Rumor has it that the guy who appointed von Spakovsky has determined that waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, humiliation, intimidation, and a whole host of other “not torture” techniques are excellent remedies for the sort of memory problems that seem to be plaguing the loyal Bushies. If they really believe that . . . Naw, no one really believes that–or anything else they say. So why bother acting as if they deserve to be respected as sincere and valuable members of the government? They are a bunch of destructive crooks. Get rid of them already! Enough of this nonsense about cutting deals, compromising, and maintaining decorum for crooks.